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As a contestant on the game show Press Your Luck, Steve
Chaput won a trip to London, a trip to Rome and $10,000. He gave
the London trip to his mother and took his future wife to the
Italian capital. And the money? He didn't spend it on cars or
jewels. Instead, Chaput, 41, saved it to invest in something
he'd had his eye on for quite some time: his own business.

When he went on the game show in 1985, Chaput was the West Coast
sales rep for an athletic footwear company. He'd been thinking
about buying a franchise for a while-he'd even visited some
franchising expos to see what was out there-but he had a good job
and decided to stick with it.

Things changed. Chaput's territory and commissions were cut
back. No longer wanting to work for someone else, Chaput decided to
give franchising a try and chose Molly Maid.

Though the $10,000 didn't cover all his opening expenses,
Chaput's winnings did pay for the franchise fee. The money also
spared Chaput from having to take out a loan.

"I had a bit of a cushion from my former job," Chaput
says. "But the money from the game show basically got me into
Molly Maid. There's no way that $10,000 is sufficient to start
a business, but it helped."

While the Press Your Luck prize helped open the doors to
Chaput's Upland, California-based franchise, Chaput believes he
would have gone into franchising even if he hadn't hit it big
on that game show more than 15 years ago.

"I would certainly hope so," he says. "I would
think I'd have come up with the money somehow, some way. [The
$10,000] just made it easier."